Mounting Fears

Mounting Fears

Number VII of
Will Lee

Stuart Woods

Putnam Adult (2009)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

President Will Lee is having a rough week. His vice president just died during surgery. Confirmation hearings for the new vice president are under way, but the squeaky-clean governor whom Will has nominated may have a few previously unnoticed skeletons in his closet. And Teddy Fay, the rogue CIA agent last seen in
Shoot Him If He Runs
, is plotting his revenge on CIA director Kate Rule Lee—the president’s wife.

Plus there are some loose nukes in Pakistan that might just trigger World War III if Will’s diplomatic efforts fall short. It’s up to President Lee—with some help from Holly Barker, Lance Cabot, and a few other Stuart Woods series regulars—to save the world, and the upcoming election.

From Publishers Weekly

In bestseller Woodss uninspired sixth Will Lee thriller (after
Capital Crimes
), the incumbent U.S. president, William Jefferson Lee, faces a series of crises in an election year: his vice president has died during surgery; a nuclear warhead is missing in Pakistan and believed to be in the hands of a terrorist group possibly connected to al-Qaeda; and an independent presidential candidate, a charismatic minister, has erased Lees once significant lead in the polls. To make matters worse, Lees newly appointed vice president, the former governor of California, has got himself entangled in a messy divorce as well as a sordid love triangle that, if exposed, could become front-page fodder for the tabloids and all but destroy Lees re-election bid. While Woods exhibits his usual brilliant sense of pacing, two-dimensional characters, a mechanical plot and an improbable ending far from satisfy.
(Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Will Lee, the Democratic incumbent president, is up for reelection and quickly discovers that he’s in for a bumpy ride. After his vice president dies unexpectedly, Will must find a new running mate who can immediately be sworn in. He settles on California governor Marty Stanton, who seems perfect on paper but is hiding a secret that could reflect badly on the ticket. The stakes are upped when the Republicans settle on a young, hot up-and-comer and a popular black minister enters the race as an independent, threatening to siphon off votes from Will. To make matters worse, Will is dealing with a huge international incident: terrorists have seized control of a nuclear missile site in Pakistan. Things are heating up behind the scenes as well: Teddy Fay, a deadly assassin the CIA has been tracking for years, has resurfaced in Panama and will soon head back to U.S. soil. There’s a lot going on in Woods’ latest thriller, but the plotlines dovetail nicely and the suspense never lets up. With publication set just after the 2008 presidential election, Mounting Fears is both timely and gripping and far superior to his most recent Stone Barrington book, Hot Mahogany (2008). --Kristine Huntley

MOUNTING FEARS

STUART WOODS

This book is for
Barbara Ellen Woods,
with love.

1

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WILLIAM JEFFERSON LEE IV, SAT STRAIGHT up in bed. It had been the nuclear nightmare wherein some unidentified country had launched missiles on the United States and he had to decide at whom to strike back. It was not the first time.

Will wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his nightshirt, then tried to get out of bed without waking his wife. He was halfway to the bathroom when he remembered that Kate, who for the past four years had been director of intelligence, head of the CIA, had left for work two hours before, after an urgent phone call in the early hours.

Will stared at himself in the bathroom mirror while he waited for the water in the sink to get hot for shaving. How was he different from four years before? Considerably grayer, but Kate thought that lent him gravitas. His face was relatively unlined, still, and he took some pride in the fact that his waist size had not changed, in spite of only sporadic efforts to exercise.

He ran hot water onto the shaving brush, lathered his face, and began shaving while reviewing the high points of the day to come. Most important was a nine a.m. with the vice president, George Kiel, and he thought he knew what the meeting would be about.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, dressed in a standard chalk-striped suit and a red-and-blue-striped necktie, Will walked through the door of the White House family quarters to be greeted by the young naval officer who carried the “football,” the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear launch, and two Secret Service agents, who escorted him down the hallway and into the elevator.

Will had become accustomed to never being alone outside the family quarters and, sometimes, the Oval Office; he also had become accustomed to traveling to the airport in a large new helicopter, and from there in an outrageously well-equipped Boeing 747 with a bedroom and shower and conference room and telephones and Internet hookups and everything else that the minds of electronics experts could conceive. It had been harder to become accustomed to constantly being the most looked-at person in any room, up to and including Madison Square Garden. He had learned never to scratch his nether regions, because the video would be on the Internet within seconds.

The elevator reached the lower floor, and then, instead of being walked to the Oval Office, Will was walked to the press room in the basement of the White House. No preparation had been necessary, because the press had not been invited. Instead, the auditorium was filled with White House staffers.

Will stepped to the lectern. “My God,” he said, “who’s answering the phones?”

Tim Coleman, his chief of staff, stood up in the front row. “Nobody, Mr. President,” he said, then sat down again. Everybody laughed.

“Well, good morning to you all,” Will said. “As I expect you may have heard, I’m headed for New York today to accept the nomination tonight, and I wanted to say just a few words to you before I go.” He looked around at the happy faces. “It may surprise some of you that I got the nomination.” Everybody laughed again. “But I guess being the incumbent helps. What was even more of a help was the successful nature of our first term, and I use the pronoun advisedly. The people in this room had as much, maybe more, to do with that success than anyone else, and I wanted to thank you, personally, for that help.

“Now, assuming that I win a second term for us—and that’s only an assumption at this point—I’m going to be faced with being called a lame duck for the next four years. It’s my fervent hope that you will all be here to face that with me, but I understand that practically all of you have served for the past four years at a considerable financial sacrifice and that the call of the private sector, as the Republicans like to call the defense contractors and the Washington lobbying firms, will be ringing in your ears.

“It’s my hope that you will all be here during the campaign, because
somebody
has to run the White House, and that you’ll be here early in the next four years to help break in your replacements—should you choose to leave. I know, of course, that the last year of the next administration the rats will all be swimming for shore, and I can’t blame them. I just want you to know that every one of you here has proved your value to the White House and to your country, and I would be delighted if you all decided to stay on for another four years.

“That said, be sure to tune in to the convention tonight to learn if any of your suggestions made it into the speech. Bye-bye for now.”

Will walked off the platform and was followed by Tim Coleman and Kitty Conroy, his director of communications. These two had been his aides when he was in the Senate, and they were closer to him than anyone else on the staff.

Will walked through the reception room outside the Oval Office. His secretary, Cora Parker, spoke up. “Mr. President, the director of Central Intelligence and the deputy director for operations of the CIA are waiting in the Oval Office.”

This was a surprise. “Please send the vice president in when he arrives,” he said. Kate and her DDO, Lance Cabot, were waiting for him, and they both stood as he entered. Will waved them to their seats and hung his coat on a stand by the door.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Mr. President,” Kate said—she always addressed him formally in meetings with others—“we have a report that a Taliban group, possibly aided by Al Qaeda operatives, have captured a missile site in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border.”

Will stopped in his tracks. “A
nuclear
missile site?”

“Yes, sir,” Kate said.

“Are the Taliban able to fire the missiles?”

“They also captured most of the technicians alive.”

“So it’s possible they could fire at something?”

“Just possible,” Kate said. “Not likely, but possible.”

“Have they made any demands?”

“No, but we’re expecting that shortly.”

“Has the story broken?”

“Not yet. The Pakistani president has clamped a tight lid on it, but I don’t think we can count on that for long. When the occupiers of the site start making demands, they’re very likely to make a lot of noise about it.”

“Why are there no military people here?”

“They’re on the way, sir,” Kate replied. “Their departure from the Pentagon was delayed by what they hope is new information coming in.”

Cora Parker ’s head appeared from behind a door. “Mr. President, the vice president and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army chief of staff are here with their aides.”

“Send them right in,” Will said, then stood up to receive the group. There was not a happy face among them.

Cora came back in behind them. “Mr. President, President Mohammed Khan of Pakistan is on the phone.”

Will walked to his desk. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “I’d better take this. Maybe he’ll have something new.”

2

WILL PICKED UP THE TELEPHONE AND PRESSED THE FLASHING BUTTON. “PRESIDENT Khan?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I understand that a nuclear missile site has been taken by the Taliban.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And that Al Qaeda may be involved?”

“We expect so.”

“How can we help?”

“I am meeting with my military staff in a moment, and I hope to have an answer to that question afterward.”

“I understand that most of the technical staff were captured at the site?”

“Yes, that is true, I’m afraid.”

“Have the occupiers made any demands?”

“No, and they are not responding to our communications.”

“Is there anything I can do for you at this moment?”

“Not yet, sir, but I will be in touch. I just wanted to be sure that you had been made aware of the situation.”

“I have, and my military and intelligence staff have just arrived. I hope to speak to you again when your meeting is over. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

“That was Mohammed Khan,” Will said to the others. “He seems to know little right now, but he’s about to meet with his military staff.”

“Mr. President,” General Boone, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said, “I think it would be best if we moved this meeting to the Situation Room, since we have some electronic intelligence to display, and that room is best equipped for it.”

TEN MINUTES LATER the group had settled in around the conference table in the Situation Room. “Who’d like to start?” he asked.

“I would,” Kate said. “We have some satellite photos to show you.” She clicked a remote control, and an image of mountains appeared; with a laser pointer she indicated a narrow valley. “This is the location of the installation,” she said. “As you can see we have clear weather, so this is a very good photo.” She clicked again and zoomed in until the missile site appeared clearly. “This is the view from about two thousand feet. You can see the cluster of buildings and the array of silos.”